A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

(West of Urals) 11. Crimea 1860 Crimean Peninsula 35 12. Omsk 1900 Siberia 58 13. Slavgorod and Barnaul 1907 Siberia 51 14. Pavlodar 1907 Siberia 16 (For map of Mennonite Settlements in European Russia see Appendix 3) We shall briefly sketch the founding and development of Mennonite Brethren churches in a number of daughter colonies. (1) Crimea* (Spat-Schoental). The Mennonites began to settle here soon after the Crimean War (1854-56). In all probability they had become acquainted with this area in the course of their transportation duties for the government during the war. In the next four decades some twenty-five villages were established in this "Florida" of Russia, with most of the settlers coming from the Molotschna Colony. In 1869 a group of believers seceded from the Kleine Gemeinde and organized the Krimmer Mennonite Brethren Church, as reported earlier. This church emigrated to the United States as a body in 1874, under the leadership of their elder Jacob A. Wiebe. The Mennonite Brethren Church in the Crimea was born in the 3. Mennonite settlements in the Ukraine ERA OF PROSPERITY AND PROGRESS (1885-1914) 89 revivals of 1883-84, which may be considered as an extension of the great awakening in the Molotschna during the same time. Itinerant evangelists from the Molotschna visited the Crimean settlements and revivals occurred in Spat, Tokultschack, Timir Bulat (A. H. Unruh's birthplace) and in other villages. Some Mennonite Brethren families who had moved to this area gave leadership in arranging Bible studies and prayer meetings for the new converts. Upon the request of the group, David Schellenberg, elder of the Rueckenau M.B. Church, and several other brethren came to the village of Spat in the spring of 1885 to assist the believers here in organizing a church. On April 28, 1885, Schellenberg baptized twenty-one people and organized the group as a branch-church (Filiate) of the Rueckenau M.B. Church. A little more than a year later, in the fall of 1886, David Schellenberg ordained Hermann Konrad as elder of the Spat-Schoental congregation in the presence of Abraham Schellenberg, who had come from the United States for an extensive visit to the Mennonite Brethren churches of Russia. The congregation prospered under the multiple ministry of dedicated preachers. In 1895 Abraham Kroeker returned from Rumania where he had served a Baptist congregation for more than two years, and two years later his cousin Jakob Kroeker came back from Hamburg after completing his theological studies there. 6 In 1897 the Spat-Schoental congregation extended a call to David Duerksen, an evangelist of the Molotschna M.B. Church, to assume leadership responsibility for the rapidly growing constituency. In 1899 David Duerksen was ordained as elder by elders Aron Lepp (Chortitza) and David Schellenberg (Molotschna). At the same time the Spat-Schoent